u 


History  Repeating  Itself. 


A  DISCOURSE, 


Rev.  CHARLES  STANLEY  LESTER, 


Rector  St.  Paul’s  Episcopal  Church, 


HYDE  PARK, 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE 


Harvest  Home  Festival, 

5  th  October ,  1879. 


PRINTED  BY  REQUEST. 


“History  Repeating  Itself.” 


A  DISCOURSE, 


BY 


Rev.  CHARLES  STANLEY  LESTER, 


Rector  St.  Paul’s  Episcopal  Church, 


HYDE  PARK, 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE 


Harvest  Home  Festival, 

5th  October ,  1879. 


PRINTED  BY  REQUEST. 


And  all  countries  came  into  Egyyt  to  Joseph,  for  to  buy  corn . — 
Genesis  xli :  57. 

History  is  repeating  itself  upon  a  grander  scale,  and  the  old  old 
story  of  corn  in  Egypt,  whose  tragedy  and  romance  interested  us 
so  greatly  when  we  were  children,  is  being  lived  over  again  upon 
the  broad  arena  of  the  wide,  wide  world. 

Our  modern  romance  is  very  like  the  old  one,  only  that  the 
little  details  of  a  family  story  have  become  the  grand  features  of  a 
nation’s  life.  In  place  of  Egypt,  we  have  a  continent  ;  instead  of 
a  single  Joseph,  a  multitude  of  younger  sons  ;  of  men  hated  and 
persecuted  for  conscience  sake,  of  men  sent  into  exile  by  the 
tyranny  of  their  elder  brethren. 

Instead  of  a  few  short  years  in  a  single  life,  we  have  two  cen¬ 
turies  and  more,  before  the  romance  of  the  history  begins,  and  all 
Europe  awakes  to  the  fact  that  the  children’s  children  of  those 
who  went  out  from  her  in  poverty  and  sorrow,  are  holding  the 
storehouses  of  the  food  of  the  world.  This  is  certainly  romantic 
history,  and  all  the  more  romantic  because  it  is  so  strangely  true. 
When  generations  yet  to  come,  shall  read  the  history  of  the  won¬ 
derful  nineteenth  century,  the  year  1879  will  stand  out  in  bold 
relief  upon  its  pages  as  the  great  year  of  the  turning  of  the  tide — 
the  year  in  which  a  great  young  nation,  for  centuries  dependent  on 
its  mother-world,  reached  its  majority  and  found  itself  suddenly  in 
position  to  dictate  the  cost  of  living  to  its  aged  parent  across  the 
sea. 

What  use  will  it  make  of  its  sudden  prosperity  and  power  ? 

Will  it  deal  justly  and  mercifully  with  men  ?  What  influences 
will  go  out  with  its  wheat,  lumber  and  pork  ?  What  will  it  do 
under  its  sudden  rain  of  gold  ?  These  are  the  questions  that  we 
cannot  help  asking,  while  we  praise  God  for  the  great  harvest  of 
the  year  1879. 


4 


For  however  bare  and  hard  and  material  the  business  of  the 
world  may  seem,  we  cannot  separate  spiritual  from  material  things  ; 
we  cannot  divorce  transactions  from  their  influences,  but  must  re¬ 
gard  the  commerce  of  the  world  as  a  great  magnetic  fluid,  which  is 
affecting  the  souls  of  men  for  good  or  evil. 

The  little  camel  train,  which  wound  its  slow,  weary  length  across 
the  desert,  to  bring  home  its  modicum  of  corn,  has  become  a  great 
river,  majestic  in  its  strength,  gathering  its  volume  from  the 
thousand  quick  arteries  of  a  nation’s  life,  and  pouring  into  the 
mighty  ocean,  to  spread  throughout  the  world  the  products  and 
manufactures,  the  methods  and  the  faiths  of  a  great  nation. 

When  we  see  a  train  go  by,  with  its  heavy  load  of  freight,  there 
are  things  going  with  that  train  not  seen,  things  which  do  not  ap¬ 
pear  in  the  invoice,  and  yet  they  are  things  which  affect  the  souls 
of  men  forever.  And  as  each  car  load  reaches  its  journey’s  end, 
these  unseen  things  expend  their  subtle  force  to  make  or  mar  the 
fortunes  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 

There  is  a  little  strengthening  of  some  one’s  faith  in  the  things 
that  abide  forever,  or  one  more  shock  to  make  men  distrust  our 
human  kind. 

We  cannot  help  seeing,  therefore,  how  dependent  the  world  is 
for  its  growth  in  goodness,  upon  the  faiths  of  men,  in  the  great 
centres  of  commercial  life.  The  things  which  have  influenced  men 
for  good  or  evil  have  always  radiated  from  great  centres,  and  the 
names  of  historic  cities  mean  for  us  a  thousand  things  more  than  the 
mere  localities  they  represent.  When  we  speak  of  Jerusalem,  or 
Athens,  Rome,  or  Paris,  we  scarcely  think  of  places  at  all,  but  of 
the  influences  which  have  gone  out  from  them  to  make  the  history 
of  the  world. 

These  four  names  alone  seem  to  us  more  like  synonyms  or  sym¬ 
bols  for  religion,  art,  law  and  vanity. 

It  has  taken  centuries  to  associate  certain  influences  with  great 
historic  names,  but  what  our  modern  cities  lack  in  the  prestige  of 
time,  they  more  than  make  good  by  the  rapidity  of  communication 
and  the  larger  circle  through  which  their  influences  extend. 


s 


When  a  city  has  grown  old,  its  influence  is  a  past  settled  fact  of 
history,  but  so  long  as  it  is  young,  it  may  make  the  influence  what 
it  will. 

There  seems  to  be  a  responsibility  then  which  has  fallen  upon 
the  shoulders  of  business  men  in  the  great  cities  of  this  country, 
such  has  never  been  laid  upon  any  men  since  the  world  began. 

It  is  not  alone  the  markets  of  the  world  that  they  are  to  con¬ 
trol,  the  prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life  that  they  are  to  regulate, 
but  the  faiths  of  men  that  they  are  to  prescribe  and  the  religion  of 
the  future  that  they  are  to  formulate. 

We  often  talk  about  the  farming  population  as  constituting  the 
backbone  of  a  country.  But  the  country  copies  the  cities  and 
follows  in  their  wake.  Its  effect  is  not  active  influence,  but  dead 
weight. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  original  thinkers,  the  prophets  of  a  land 
are  few.  It  is  the  business  man,  those  who  live  in  the  hottest 
of  the  strife,  where  the  motives  of  life  are  generated,  who  digest 
thought  and  transmute  it  into  power. 

Was  ever  an  opportunity,  then,  like  the  present,  to  convert  the 
world,  was  ever  a  centre  of  influence  more  important  for  the  faiths 
and  destinies  of  man  than  this  great  city  of  Chicago  ?  It  is  the 
Egypt  of  a  new  era.  All  countries  are  flocking  to  it,  to  buy  corn, 
all  roads  lead  to  it,  as  once  to  Rome,  and  North  and  South  and 
East  and  West,  across  the  continent  and  beyond  the  sea,  must  go 
out  from  this  focus  of  material  things  a  tremendous  influence  upon 
the  morality  and  religion  of  the  world. 

It  is  not  in  material  prosperity  alone  that  this  country  has  at¬ 
tained  its  majority.  It  has  acquired,  also,  the  power  of  independent 
thought.  The  old  problems  of  mankind  are  to  be  thought  over 
again,  and  their  new  solutions  may  become  the  inspirations  of  a 
better  life  throughout  the  world. 

When  we  were  young,  as  a  nation,  we  imported  our  clothes,  our 
manners,  our  philosophy  and  religion  from  Europe,  but  out  of  the 
strange  amalgam  of  nationalities  and  traditions,  of  customs  and 
creeds,  which  has  been  gathering  and  seething  in  this  country, 


6 


there  is  slowly  coming  forth  a  distinctive  race,  which  will  make  or 
mar  the  world’s  development,  which  will  either  deify  material  things 
and  make  a  fetish  of  prosperity,  or  else  take  a  noble  stride  forward 
in  the  evolution  of  a  higher  life,  and  out  of  the  buried  kernels  of 
Christian  truth  develop  a  grand  simplicity  of  faith,  which  shall  be¬ 
come  an  abiding  power  in  the  daily  lives  of  men. 

We  sometimes  deplore  the  fact  that  we  are  an  irreverent  nation, 
that  we  have  little  respect  for  persons  or  dignity,  for  places  or  tra¬ 
ditions,  and  yet  this  very  irreverence  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  rude 
shock  which  has  freed  us  from  the  thraldom  of  the  past. 

We  stand  in  no  awe  of  precedents.  Instead  of  following  estab¬ 
lished  customs,  we  are  making  new  ones  for  ourselves.  Instead  of 
bowing  to  authority  in  church  or  state,  we,  the  people  of  a  great 
nation,  are  the  authority,  and  the  respect  once  paid  to  principalities 
and  powers  is  turned  into  the  individual  consciousness  of  being  ab¬ 
solutely  free.  This  personal  freedom  is  a  grand  advance  in  the 
evolution  of  the  race,  a  step  upwards  for  millions  of  human  beings 
towards  the  absoluteness  of  Almighty  God. 

And  yet  it  may  be  a  dangerous  step.  Unless  the  fulness  of 
time  be  come,  when  men  are  able  to  grasp  the  rudder  of  their  own 
lives  and  guide  them  by  the  compass  of  lawful  destiny,  there  may 
be  war  in  Heaven  and  greater  anarchy  in  a  nation’s  life  than  under 
the  old  clumsy  methods  by  which  the  powers  of  church  and  state 
curbed  the  turbulence  of  men. 

There  must  be  law  and  order,  there  must  be  restraints  and  con¬ 
trol,  and  if  these  be  not  imposed  by  powers  without,  they  must  be 
the  development  of  conscience  in  each  individual  soul,  and  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  world  are  turned  upon  this  country  to  see  it 
working  at  the  great  problem  of  self-control,  to  see  whether  the 
time  has  yet  come,  when  a  great  nation  glorying  in  the  strength  of 
its  independent  manhood,  can  be  a  law  unto  itself,  or  whether 
yielding  to  the  torrents  of  temptations  which  assail  its  youthful 
life,  it  is  to  fall  from  its  ambitious  height  and  be  engulfed  in  politi¬ 
cal,  financial  and  moral  ruin. 

This  present  year  of  a  new  prosperity  is  like  the  dawning  of  a 


7 


new  life  after  a  long  racking  of  pain  and  a  weary  prostration  from 
disease.  Like  a  patient  returning  to  consciousness  after  long  weeks 
of  sickness,  we  look  back  and  remember  that  we  had  a  long  and 
dreadful  war,  whose  convulsions  threatened  to  tear  the  nation  limb 
from  limb,  and  we  can  recall  the  visions  of  our  aged  relatives  be¬ 
yond  the  sea,  sitting  by  the  bedside  and  feeling  the  nation’s  pulse, 
waiting  to  see  the  breath  go  out,  that  each  might  write  a  letter 
in  the  simple  epitaph — “  America  is  dead.” 

But  America  did  not  die.  Young  nations  do  not  die  so  easily  ; 
but  throwing  off  the  dread  attack,  she  was  left  sore  and  weak, 
exposed  to  all  the  maladies  which  float  in  the  pestilential  at¬ 
mosphere  of  war.  The  measles  of  ring-frauds  broke  out  in  a 
dreadful  rash  all  over  the  land.  The  yellow  fever  of  corruption 
attacked  her  vitals  in  local  boards,  in  legislatures,  in  the  capital  its- 
self.  The  high  fever  of  fictitious  values  threw  her  into  the  wild 
delirium  of  speculation.  And  then  came  the  sudden  collapse  of 
her  over-strained  energies,  the  dead  surplus  of  production,  the 
stagnation  of  trade,  the  paralysis  of  commerce  and  the  question 
whether  the  nation’s  sufferings  had  not  left  her  a  hopeless,  shattered 
wrreck.  But  slowly  and  surely  she  has  been  nursing  herself  back  to 
life,  saving  her  strength,  recruiting  her  energies,  throwing  off  her 
encumbrances  and  biding  her  time,  until  now  she  finds  herself 
ready  to  begin  again  the  real  work  and  warfare  of  life,  in  a  time  like 
the  grand  days  of  Solomon,  when  “  silver  is  accounted  as  nothing, 
by  reason  of  the  plentifulness  of  gold.” 

Would  that  she  might  adopt  a  new  motto  and  blazon  it  in  her 
halls  of  congress,  and  write  it  large  in  her  boards  of  trade,  and 
print  it  on  her  commercial  note,  and  sink  it  deep  in  each  man’s 
heart  —  “  Go  and  sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  upon  thee.” 

And  how  shall  we,  as  a  nation,  be  saved  from  our  sins  ?  By 
faith  only  !  Not  the  old  interpretation  of  this  historic  phrase,  by 
which  men  thought  that  a  certain  theological  belief  would  enable 
them  to  reap  what  they  had  not  sown,  but  the  actual  belief  by 
business  men  that  certain  things  are  better  worth  living  for  than 
certain  other  things,  that  there  is  a  higher  law  than  the  civil  code 


or  selfish  policy,  and  that  the  first  and  noblest  duty  of  man  is  not 
to  make  money  or  to  gratify  himself,  but  to  help  in  the  evolution 
of  the  race. 

We  have  this  much  in  our  favor  to  start  with.  By  far  the 
largest  part  of  the  business  men  have  a  most  profound  respect  for 
integrity  and  patience,  for  perseverance  and  faithfulness.  But 
what  they  do  not  realize,  and  what  they  ought  to  believe,  is  that 
these  things  are  copies  in  some  degree  of  the  attributes  of  God, 
that  the  men  who  manifest  these  things  are  Godlike,  and  so  are 
lights  and  leaders  of  the  race  in  its  grand  development  towards  the 
perfection  of  its  Father  in  Heaven.  Men  need  to  believe  that  these 
are  not  the  evanescent  virtues  of  a  human  life,  but  the  things  that 
abide  forever  and  make  the  form  and  features  of  a  character  for 
eternity. 

Men  are  greatly  fascinated  with  the  new  philosophy  of  evolu¬ 
tion,  but  under  the  hands  of  its  apostles  it  bids  them  look  back¬ 
wards,  not  forwards.  It  draws  its  inspiration  from  monstrosities 
and  dead  bones  and  jelly  fish,  and  the  last  link  in  its  chain  is  the 
present  human  life.  But  Christianity  adds  another  link,  and  bids 
us  to  forget  those  things  that  are  behind,  while  we  press  forward 
towards  the  infinite  heights  that  are  yet  before  us  in  the  evolution 
of  mankind,  bids  us  work  for  the  incarnation  into  our  human  lives 
of  the  life  of  God,  and  for  the  transformation  into  flesh  and  blood 
of  the  things  that  are  pure  and  honorable,  and  true,  and  of  good 
report. 

Here  is  a  faith  that  is  not  dark  and  mysterious,  a  faith  that 
carries  with  it  inspiration  and  power,  a  faith  that  transforms  the 
motives  and  ambitions  of  life,  a  faith  that  saves  men  from  their  sins 
by  making  them  seek  first,  in  all  things,  the  glorious  fulfillment  of 
their  human  destiny. 

This  is  the  kind  of  faith  which  this  country  needs  to-day  ;  a 
faith  by  which  men  live,  and  not  a  faith  flaunted  before  the  world 
in  the  stock  phrases  of  cant ;  a  bright  and  glorious  living  power, 
which  takes  to  itself  form  and  feature  in  the  business  transactions 
of  the  business  world,  and  makes  the  ledger,  and  the  brokers’  board, 


9 


the  press,  the  telegraph  and  the  mail  its  ministers  to  preach  through¬ 
out  the  world  its  Gospel  of  righteousness  and  truth.  It  is  the  business 
men  and  not  the  clergy  who  are  to  preach  this  faith.  They  are  to 
preach  it  not  in  words,  in  dogmas  or  in  creeds,  but  in  faithfulness  to 
the  noblest  motives  of  the  soul,  faithfulness  which  makes  sacra¬ 
ments  of  common  things,  and  turns  every  transaction,  whether 
small  or  great,  into  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and 
spiritual  power  that  goes  out  on  its  mission  to  purify  and  elevate 
and  redeem  the  souls  of  men. 

The  influences  of  the  clergy  in  the  world  to-day,  compared  with 
the  influences  of  business  men,  seems  to  me  like  the  little  cloud 
which  floats  across  the  clear  summer  sky.  Multitudes  do  not  see  it, 
other  multitudes  do  not  heed  it,  but  all  men  know  that  the  day  is 
fine.  4 

A  clergyman  drops  his  little  pebbles  into  the  quiet  mill-pond 
before  his  cottage  door,  and  the  ripples  dance  for  a  moment  in  the 
sunshine  of  peace  and  friendliness,  but  the  men  who  move  the 
great  levers  of  the  machinery  of  trade  are  dropping  ponderous 
stones  into  the  ocean  of  humanity,  and  the  ripples  go  rolling  on  in 
ever-widening  circles,  until  they  spend  their  force  upon  the  shores 
of  eternity. 

What  a  responsibility  !  What  an  inspiration  ! 

Ought  not  the  men  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the  world  are  come 
to  feel  themselves  called  of  God  and  consecrated  as  the  apostles  of 
a  new  and  living  faith  ?  Ought  not  the  priests  who  minister  at  the 
altars  of  trade  to  be  clothed  with  righteousness,  and  as  the  leaders 
in  the  war  for  a  new  emancipation  of  mankind,  to  put  on  the 
whole  armor  of  God  ? 

To-day  is  their  grand  opportunity,  not  only  to  profit  by  the  re¬ 
vival  of  industry  and  trade,  but  to  work  nobly  for  the  revival 
throughout  this  land  of  faith  in  the  things  that  abide  forever. 

The  responsibility  and  the  opportunity  increase  with  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  centre  from  which  influence  goes  out.  Most  nota¬ 
bly,  then,  is  this  very  city  of  Chicago  the  place  for  the  preaching 
of  a  new  Gospel,  for  the  rallying  to  a  new  crusade,  for  laying  again 


IO 


the  old  foundation  stones  of  righteousness  and  truth,  made  bright 
and  clean  from  the  clinging  vines  of  bigotry  and  the  old  mosses  of 
tradition.  There  are  other  cities  in  this  land,  older  and  more  beau¬ 
tiful,  with  more  culture  and  music,  and  art  and  wealth,  but  there  is 
no  place  which  is  to-day  exerting  so  great  an  influence  upon  the 
faiths  and  methods,  the  deeds  and  destinies  of  men,  as  the  city  of 
Chicago.  Down  in  the  region  between  Water  Street  and  Jackson, 
between  the  river  and  the  lake,  is  the  great  throbbing  heart  of  a 
new  life  for  the  world,  a  heart  that  is  sending  its  pulsations 
throughout  this  land,  and  across  two  oceans,  making  the  future  re¬ 
ligion  of  America,  and  moulding  the  lives  of  men  in  France  and 
Germany,  in  China  and  Japan. 

Everyone  knows  that  the  centre  of  population  in  this  land  must 
be  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  what  the  future  millions  of  this 
valley  shall  believe,  and  live  and  do,  depends  upon  the  light  that 
is  shining  from  the  great  metropolis  of  the  West. 

The  farmers  and  the  little  dealers  down  in  Illinois  and  through¬ 
out  the  great  Northwest,  will  be  the  kind  of  men  that  the  mer¬ 
chants  of  Chicago  make  them.  They  will  be  honorable  and  faith¬ 
ful  and  true,  they  will  believe  in  immortality  and  God,  or  they  will 
be  cunning  and  grasping,  and  tricky  and  contemptible  and  mean. 
And  the  reputation  of  Chicago’s  dealings  will  be  known  far  and 
wide  ;  what  she  says  will  be  a  synomyn  for  truth  ;  what  she  prom¬ 
ises,  a  guarantee  of  fulfillment  ;  what  she  does,  the  outward, 
comely  form  of  a  faithful  spirit  ;  or  she  will  be  known  among  the 
nations  as  a  place  where  none  but  the  wise  and  prudent  dare  come 
to  trade. 

She  believes  in  herself.  Would  that  she  might  realize  her  in¬ 
fluence  and  power.  Would  that  some  one  gifted  with  persuasive 
eloquence  might  take  each  of  her  merchants  by  the  hand  and  bid 
him  —  “O,  sir,  I  pray  you  believe  in  some  of  these  eternal  things, 
some  of  the  truths  which  you  do  not  touch,  nor  taste,  nor  see  ; 
I  pray  you,  live  by  this  faith,  and  so  help  to  kindle  in  Chicago  the 
bright  shining  of  a  light  that  shall  lighten  the  nations  of  the  earth 
along  the  highway  of  life,  towards  the  perfection  of  God.” 


But  the  overwhelming  thought  comes  to  us  here  to-day — 
What  are  we  among  so  many  ?  Five  barley  loaves  and  a  few  small 
fishes.  Yet  these  once  fed  the  multitude.  It  is  the  leaven  that 
leaveneth  the  lump.  It  is  the  unseen  springs  which  multiply  into 
torrents  of  power.  It  is  the  single  mountains  which  help  to  make 
the  mountain  chain,  and  no  man  who  lives  so  near  the  center  of 
the  world’s  activities  as  you  and  I,  can  begin  to  measure  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  a  single  life.  Look  you  to  yourselves,  therefore,  and  not  to 
your  brethren.  Look  well  to  your  own  faith.  Govern  your  own 
life  thereby,  and  honestly  believe  that  the  little  seeds  of  hidden 
things  that  you  are  planting  day  by  day,  are  the  seeds  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  life  for  the  city,  the  country  and  the  world. 

Joseph  was  but  a  single  man  sold  into  slavery,  and  yet  by  the 
faith  and  faithfulness  of  that  one  life,  multitudes  of  lives  were 
saved,  and  the  current  of  the  history  of  the  world  was  changed. 

Our  opportunities  are  grander  than  his.  It  is  not  one  country, 
or  a  few  camel  trains,  but  the  whole  wide  world  that  is  flocking 
hither  to  buy  corn,  and  let  every  man,  therefore,  who  glows  with 
the  inspiration  of  Chicago’s  gigantic  trade,  feel  the  noble  inspira¬ 
tion  of  her  influence,  and  look  upon  his  own  life  as  big  with  influ¬ 
ence  that  is  going  out  from  him  in  a  constant  stream  of 
mould  the  destinies  of  this  country  and  to  formulate  the 
of  the  world. 


vith  influ- 
power, 

ic 


4 


